Scarlet in the Snow

by Sophie Masson

  But I wasn’t going to be beaten as easily as that. ‘I am secretary to a very great gentleman scholar,’ I said grandly. ‘His name is Professor Feyovin. You may have heard of him; he has given papers at all the learned academies, and just last month he presented a copy of his latest work to the King. And he has charged me with looking up a certain matter arising three years ago; he told me that it was surely to be found in your archives for, as he said, the Kolorgrod Messenger is one of the best and most thorough newspapers in the land.’

  ‘He said that, did he?’ said the surly girl, softening.

  ‘Yes, he did, and he also said that he would be making full acknowledgements in his book, and sending the editor a copy of it as well,’ I embroidered. ‘You may also be interested to know that this book is to be presented to the Emperor himself, so that the name of the Kolorgrod Messenger will reach the highest ears in the land.’

  Even I thought I might be laying the butter on a little too thick here, but she lapped it up. ‘Of course we will be more than happy to help a true scholar,’ she said eagerly, reaching under the desk and taking out a heavy brass key. ‘Please follow me, Miss, and perhaps if you like I may be of assistance to find what you want?’

  ‘Oh no, it is quite fine. I know you must have a good deal of work at the desk; it’s so busy in a newspaper office,’ I said hastily. ‘But thank you very much for the offer. I will be sure to mention you to my employer, who I know will be most grateful too.’

  ‘Oh, that is quite all right,’ she simpered, the surliness quite gone as she led me a little way down a corridor to a door which she unlocked with the brass key. ‘If you find you do need my help after all, please don’t hesitate to ask.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said a little faintly, for although the room was small it was a daunting sight, with dusty boxes piled upon dusty boxes, each labelled with dates, and stacks of newspapers tied with string covered just about every other spare surface. But there was no way I wanted her peering over my shoulder while I looked. ‘And now I’d better start, I suppose,’ I said, smiling. She took the hint and left, taking the brass key with her, to my dismay.

  Still, who else was likely to come into this dusty bolthole? The Kolorgrod Messenger, despite my hypocritical praise, was hardly the stuff of legend, and its pages mostly sent you to sleep. But occasionally there were news items about more sensational happenings from far and wide, sometimes of a magical nature, dotted like crystallised fruit in everyday porridge, and this is what I looked for as I slowly and painstakingly picked my way through all the editions of the Kolorgrod Messenger from three years back to the present.

  I found some extraordinary snippets, such as a lurid tale of a love potion gone wrong, a fur-trapper’s report of stumbling into an enchanted village in the forest, and a macabre story of a man devoured by a spirit-wolf called up by a northern shaman. But I discovered nothing that bore any relationship to what I was looking for. Whatever spell the sorcerer had used to transform poor Ivan into an abartyen, it had not been noticed – at least not by our august newspaper.

  So I tried another tack, and went through them all again looking for any mention of art and artists. There was very little of any consequence, though I did find a small mention of Gelden and his fisticuffs with the critic in an Almain art gallery. It was most discouraging. And the dust was tickling my nose and my throat and making me sneeze.

  It was sheer luck that my eye happened to light upon something down the bottom of a page of a Christmas issue. A rather uneasy mix of news and advertisement, it bore the tagline ‘Golden Express Brings Art World’s Brightest Stars to Faustina Festival’, and went on to say: Artists from all over the world have converged on Faustina for the city’s new Imperial Art Festival and its offers of rich prizes. The festival is in part sponsored by the luxury Golden Express, which provides discounted fares for every artist whose work has been accepted for the festival. On the train from Palume to Faustina this year were some of the finest artists from Champaine, Almain, and the Prettanic Islands, to mention only a few. Below the article was a rather blurry tinted photograph of a large group of men and three or four women, all of them in evening dress, grinning at the camera in the luxurious surrounds of the Golden Express dining car.

  My skin prickled with excitement. Real information at last! And it gave me a different theory to the one I’d had before: this train had run from Palume to Faustina, so if Ivan had been on it, Palume was where he’d come from. So he probably wasn’t Faustinian, but Champainian. And maybe it was in Faustina, at the Imperial Art Festival, that the fatal event had occurred, which meant Ivan had made an enemy of a ‘powerful and very dangerous man’.

  My ears burned. My fingertips tingled. I felt like a hound on the scent, eager for my prey. I went to the door and cautiously looked down the corridor. No-one was around, so I hurried back to the newspaper, ripped out the page I needed, folded it very small and put it deep into the pocket of my dress. No-one would notice, I thought, as I hurriedly put all the rest of the papers from that year on top and replaced the box. Opening the first box I’d looked at, I scribbled down a few random things from those newspapers in my notebook, just in case the surly girl wanted to see the results of my research. Not that I thought she would, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Then, my cheeks burning, my throat tight, I put everything away and headed back to the reception desk.

  A weedy young man was talking to the surly girl. He wore a dark suit and stovepipe hat, and had a bushy blond moustache that ate up nearly half his face. He broke off his conversation when I appeared and politely raised his hat to me. I nodded a little nervously and, turning to the girl, said, ‘Thank you very much; the professor will be so grateful.’

  ‘Did you find what you wanted?’ the girl asked.

  ‘I did, thank you.’

  I was about to leave when the girl said, ‘It’s a funny thing, you know, but this gentleman also wants to consult the archives. Nobody from one year to the next, and then there’s two in the one morning!’

  ‘Er, yes, indeed,’ I said, shooting a glance at the man, who smiled discreetly and, doffing his hat, went off down the corridor towards the archives room. I hoped he wouldn’t notice I’d torn out that page. ‘How far back was the gentleman looking, as a matter of interest?’ I said, trying to sound casual.

  ‘Oh, only about a year or two,’ she said. ‘He’s looking for information on land sales in the district around that time.’

  I was relieved. There would be no need at all for him to go looking into that older box. I was safe. No-one would know what I’d done.

  It was nearly eleven-thirty now, so I had no time to waste. I dashed into the library, picked up a few books at random on various subjects ‘Professor Feyovin’ might be expected to be interested in, and asked the librarian if she had any information on the Imperial Art Festival in Faustina.

  ‘I believe there may be a pamphlet somewhere,’ she replied, ‘but unfortunately, my dear, it’s all in Faustinian, so it might be not very useful for you.’

  ‘That’s all right, I can read the language a little and I have a dictionary at home,’ I said quickly.

  The librarian left and returned with a four-leaf pamphlet that featured a coloured picture of the imperial family of Faustina, with the logo of the Golden Express company. Inside was a good deal of print, of which I could only understand a few words. But at the back there was also an address, and it gave me an idea.

  ‘Are you thinking your mother might like to enter it, my dear?’ said the librarian, looking at me a little curiously. She knew my family circumstances, of course.

  ‘Yes, I thought she might,’ I lied brazenly. ‘Is it all right if I borrow this too?’

  ‘I’m not sure if the prize is really what she . . .’ the librarian began, but I had already tucked the pamphlet with the books under my arm and, with a cheery thanks, headed out of the library to my final destination – the post and telegraph office.

  That morning Mama had announced that
she could give us an allowance now, so we each had a little money of our own. I did not want to spend too much of mine, so after thinking carefully, I wrote the following short telegraph: Urgently need list participants in first competition, for book. Prof Ivan Feyovin, c/o Kupeda residence, Kolor Province, Ruvenya. I paid for it and watched as the woman sent it down the line to the address on the back of the pamphlet. Now it was gone, and all I needed to do was wait until they answered.

  Meanwhile, I had the page and the photograph on the Golden Express. With a magnifying glass, I might be able to make out those faces more clearly. And one of them was probably Ivan’s. Of course I had not seen him as he was before the spell had made his face monstrous, but I had looked into his eyes and I had seen his spirit. Something told me there was a good chance I would recognise him, and it made my heart beat faster to think that soon I might know who he really was.

  All the way home, and all through the lunch that Sveta had ready on the table for us as soon as we arrived, Mama and my sisters talked excitedly about the house they’d rented, making plans for when we would move there. I only listened with half an ear, for I longed to get back to my room and look at the newspaper photograph properly. Of course my silence could not fail to be noticed, and at length Mama broke off her conversation to say, ‘Is everything all right, Natashka? You look so far away.’

  ‘What? Oh, yes. Sorry, Mama,’ I said hastily. ‘All’s fine. I was just thinking.’

  ‘Not about the house, I’ll be bound,’ said Anya. ‘Have you heard anything we’ve said?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Of course. It all sounds . . . interesting.’

  ‘Interesting?’ said Liza. ‘Is that all you can say?’

  ‘What do you expect me to say? You know what I think of the city.’ I sighed. ‘And I have other things on my mind.’

  ‘What, about your professor’s job again? Anyone would think he’d put you under a work-spell, the way you’ve been going on about it,’ grumbled Anya.

  ‘You wouldn’t know about that, would you?’ I retorted. ‘Spell or no spell, you have no idea what work means.’

  ‘Girls, girls!’ Mama said, sighing. ‘That’ll do. Now, please clear the table, Liza and Anya. Natasha, you stay here. There’s something I want to say to you.’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ chorused my sisters, meekly. I sat there on the edge of my seat, nervous about what was coming next, but even more desperate to get back to my search, the photograph I’d filched burning a hole in my pocket.

  ‘Natasha,’ said my mother, ‘look at me.’

  Reluctantly, I did so.

  ‘I’m a little worried about you, my dearest daughter. There’s something on your mind. Since you’ve been back, you seem different,’ she said gently. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  I swallowed. ‘Quite sure, Mama.’

  ‘Is it something to do with what the professor has been asking you to transcribe?’ she asked, searching my face. ‘Is that what troubles you? Is he writing about dark magic, perhaps?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said, startled. ‘Nothing like that. Iv– the professor is a good man. I am just . . . a little tired, Mama. And you know, well, frankly, I didn’t miss Byeloka. So I find it hard to get as enthusiastic as my sisters. But I’m sorry if I have been rude.’

  ‘Oh, my dear girl,’ said my mother, sighing, ‘you know I have come to love our place here and that I shrink a little at the thought of being back in society. But I am merely a middle-aged widow – no, don’t protest, Natasha, that is what I am – whilst you girls are young and life is before you. And you need to see more of life than just our little world here. You need to know more people than we can know here, if you are to find your place in the big wide world, and the right man to share your life with – a man who will make you as happy as your dear father made me.’

  ‘Mama,’ I said, blushing, ‘there is time enough for that, and besides, I have seen the men of Byeloka and none of them interests me. They are all full of their own self-importance and think that a woman should have no mind of her own.’

  ‘It is surely rather harsh,’ said my mother, laughing, ‘to condemn the entire male population of Byeloka when you only know a fraction of it! I am sure there will be amongst them more than one who would be drawn to you as much for your intelligence and spirit as –’

  ‘Please, Mama, I don’t want to talk about it,’ I interrupted her. My belly was churning with an undefined emotion, my throat a little dry. ‘I do not think there are any such men.’

  ‘Well, I thought exactly the same once,’ she said. ‘Then I met your father, and I knew I was wrong and that I would go through fire and flood and all the terrors of the world for him. One day, you will understand what I mean.’ She saw my mutinous expression and sighed. ‘Meanwhile, my darling daughter, think that you are only seventeen and that you should not have to spend your life worrying about the papers of a professor.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I said crossly. ‘I’m not thinking about them at all.’

  ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘will you come with us this afternoon to visit Madame Elena?’

  Madame Elena lived in the next village. She wasn’t quite Byeloka standard, but pretty good for a village dressmaker. I shook my head gently. ‘I’m sorry, Mama. I am very tired and must rest.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said a little sadly, and I knew it was because she felt I was not being frank with her. But how could I help it?

  Back in my room, with the door locked behind me, I tried to read the pamphlet. It proved to be slow going, even with the help of the dictionary. And as it seemed to be of no immediate help to me, I soon cast the pamphlet aside and turned to the newspaper clipping, peering at the photograph through the magnifying glass I’d swiped from the study on my way upstairs. Even with the magnification, it was hard to make out their individual features, not to mention that some were standing in such a way that they were half-hidden by others.

  But I refused to be defeated, and slowly I scanned each single face. Some were easy to dismiss, such as the women and the older gentlemen with greying beards and moustaches. But there were at least ten young men in that group who looked around the right age, and three of them had their features quite obscured by the glass they were lifting, or by someone’s hand. So I looked very carefully first at those young men whose faces weren’t obscured, and the way they carried themselves, to conclude that most likely none of them was Ivan. That left only three.

  I heard the front door bang as my family left on their outing. For a moment, I felt a little guilty I hadn’t joined them. Then I shrugged and returned to my task, squinting through the glass. Was it him? Or him? Or him? Again and again I looked, trying to decide till my eyes began to hurt and my head ache. I had placed so much store on this and now it didn’t look as though it would help me at all. Oh, Ivan, I thought, I wish you could tell me! If only I could speak to you . . .

  Wait a moment. What had he said? Leaving the newspaper on the bed, I hurried over to the chest of drawers and carefully lifted out the handkerchief that held the rose petal. I gently unfolded the cloth and at once the rose’s scent filled my nostrils. I lifted the petal to my face and gently breathed in its aroma. Then I stood in front of the wardrobe mirror with it and closed my eyes. ‘Oh, Ivan,’ I whispered. ‘Ivan, my dear friend, please show yourself to me. Please speak to me.’

  I could feel his presence so close to me that when I opened my eyes and looked into the mirror I was sure I would see him there. But there was nothing except my own reflection, staring back wildly at me. Luel, I thought. Luel won’t let him use the mirror. She’ll think it’s not safe. She won’t even reply to me. I was only to do this when I was ready to return, and I hadn’t said that’s what I wanted. I hesitated. Should I return? No, not yet. It would do no good. I had to know his name. I had to wait for the reply from the Imperial Art Festival. I had to wait till I knew more, till I could be sure.

  I sat on the bed with the photograph on my lap. And with my heart pounding and the breath ca
tching in my throat, I laid the scarlet petal down gently on the face of the first young man whose features I couldn’t make out. I left it there an instant and then lifted the petal off. When I looked at it again under the magnifying glass, the man’s face suddenly leaped into focus – so clearly I could almost see the pores of his skin. But it wasn’t Ivan. I tried the next man, but it wasn’t him either. And then, taking a deep breath, I laid the petal gently upon the last one.

  To my horror the newsprint began to curl up at the edges, as though it was being held over a flame. I quickly snatched up the petal to save it. And a split second before the photograph burst into flames and crumbled into ash, I saw the third man. He was handsome with a straight grey-green gaze, a head of thick, red-brown hair, and a proud, almost arrogant demeanour. I recognised him at once, with the thrill of absolute recognition. It was Ivan.

  ‘Natashka! Natashka!’ Sveta’s voice outside my door nearly made me jump out of my skin. ‘There’s someone waiting in the sitting-room to see you, my dove. A friend of your professor.’

  My heart thumped. Ivan had heard me! Luel had come! Pocketing the petal but leaving everything else behind, I hurried out. Sveta was hovering in the corridor. ‘I’ve got some lemon cake just come out of the oven – that’ll do nicely with tea, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said vaguely, eager only to get to the sitting-room. ‘That’ll do just fine.’

  ‘Luel, I’m sorry if I alarmed you,’ I said as I went in, ‘but I needed to speak to Ivan urgently and . . .’

  The words died on my lips as I saw who was sitting in the armchair by the fire. Not Luel. Indeed, not a woman but a man. It was the weedy young man I’d seen only that morning at the newspaper office.